


Leather and Lace and a Bulletproof Briefcase

by Anonymous



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Number Five | The Boy, F/M, Five is owned and he likes it, Implied/Referenced Sex, Oddly Domestic, The Handler is his Handler, Whipping, but nonsexual if that makes sense, d/s dynamics, sadism and masochism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:33:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The Handler-his Handler--signs her name on Five's back.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/The Handler (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24
Collections: Anonymous





	Leather and Lace and a Bulletproof Briefcase

Pain blurs Five’s vision in calculated cracks. His back is singing with sharpness, a sustained burn of broken blood vessels and sensitivity. The night breeze licks at the welts and makes them prickle.

His Handler’s yard is big. It doesn’t compare to the academy grounds, but nothing does, and by now he’s spent more time out here than he ever did back home. She doesn’t want blood on the patio furniture, so he’s braced against the freestanding fireplace meant to create the feel of an outdoor living room. Thankfully, there is no fire at the moment. 

_Crack._

Five thinks, without language, about precision. He’s breathing to endure, leaning into the pain to manage it. His hands stay where she put them on the mantle and his head dips lower.

A pause, to let it all sink in.

 _One, two,_ fast and hard. The second hit turns a rough exhale into a proper shout, and it seems to echo in the space.

His Handler makes a pleased noise. Heels click on cobblestone as she moves behind him, adjusting her aim.

He feels a fresh bead of blood begin to travel down at the intersection of her strikes. Floating around in his memory, her words shake loose, bubble up.

_Show me what you’re made of, Five._

Another crack rips through him and he hisses.

“Almost done,” she says in the voice that works its way down his bones, caressing like an oil spill.

He breathes in, out. The _grand finale_ is rarely the easiest part. He can hear her, feel her without looking, and can tell that she is happy as a cat with a still-live bird between her teeth.

_Crack, crack, crack._

The whip has been speculated to be the first human invention to break the sound barrier. It is simple, savage physics- a shock of motion traveling down a line until it tightens into blood-curdling speed. Not every hit cuts, but they all mark.

It is intense. Five is beyond the point of being able to gauge how much time it takes. It is an experience of time that he had gotten in miserable little hits in the wastes, both bleary and acute, subjective and true. It is different here, when she drags him under. He doesn’t count strikes, he does enough of that when she orders him to. His only directive tonight is to take what he’s given.

_Crack._

It’s their _anniversary,_ after all.

She is hovering over him after, dabbing a cold cloth along his back as he sits forward.

“You wrote something,” Five states, testing what strength is left in his voice. It comes rough and weak, adrenaline-shocked and breathy.

“ _Mmm._ And what did I write?” His Handler asks, because they both know the answer.

“Your name.” He answers as she pats down his forehead with the other side of the cloth.

“A _signature_.” She confirms, giving a little emphatic pat to his cheek.

“Am I going to keep it?” He asks, curious but resigned to whatever future she’d decided on.

“I _snuck_ some medical goop home from the office, you’ll be healed by morning if you like.” She runs a hand down his back, examining the handiwork he may never see.

Five hums low, looking over to the now lit fireplace. She’ll hand him his shirt back in a moment, and in all likelihood her gaudy leopard blanket, which he has a petty love-hate relationship with. She insists that his new body is twenty-five, but he’s sure it’s younger than that, unless his time in the wastes rendered him unable to recognize himself as an adult without sleep deprivation and facial hair.

“…Well?” His Handler strokes down one side of his face with the cloth and tips his chin up to face her.

He blinks, slowly, still high.

“Feels a bit hollow to put so much effort into something that you can’t keep.” He replies.

His Handler grins like the devil and taps his nose with her index finger. Then, she reaches for the leopard throw.

“No mirrors until it’s healed,” she instructs, wrapping the faux fur monstrosity around his shoulders and giving him a squeeze.

“Understood,” Five breathes, feeling both cold and warm.

\---

Streams of light sneak in through the side of the blinds and hit Five’s spot at the foot of the bed. He’s in the habit of rising at the same time every morning so he uses them to rouse himself, pushing up on the soft surface with a raw ache in his shoulders. When he is balanced, he moves his hand to press against the welts, waking up the pain.

His Handler’s hair is spilled across the pillow, and he listens to her heave her tiny snores. Her silk eye mask is lopsided but still manages to block out the light. 

Five crawls up to her, ready to enact the first protocol of the day. He removes her mask without touching her and listens for the displeased _'mmph'_ of her waking. After a moment she cracks one eye, inspecting him.

“Good morning,” he says. It’s a formality by definition, but it is also something raw, an exposure in a way that is hard to describe.

“Good morning, sunshine,” she answers back, lifting herself onto her forearms and taking him in shamelessly. “How’s the boo-boo?”

“Still there, that’s for sure,” he shifts his weight on his arms, feels the whole ache move.

“Aww, baby,” she says, tracing a finger along the underside of his jaw.

“I can handle it,” he retorts.

With that, she moves her free hand to his back, digging her fingertips into whatever cursed letters end her name.

“I know,” she says fondly, deliberately, before pulling him forward.

\---

The chef makes breakfast for both of them, but _Five_ makes the coffee. The powerfully moustached man whose name Five has yet to learn in any meaningful way knows to keep clear of him as Five works the French press. He pours two mugs, one a bit less full than the other, honoring his Handler’s preferences of drowning perfectly good coffee in exotic cream and finishing the job with a pair of sugar cubes. He swears he’s felt less guilty about some murders.

When the deed is done, he takes the tray out to the breakfast table and kneels, because his knees can handle it now.

“Thank you, Five,” his Handler says, because she _‘likes to be a lady about it.’_

The chef brings breakfast out to both of them, and things are mundane for a while. After polishing off her bacon stack and wiping her fingers off on the tablecloth, she fishes a sealed envelope from her robe and flicks it across the table.

Five catches it, popping the seal open.

 _“Noah Fitzgerald Ward…”_ he considers out loud, “What does he do?”

“He gets himself into a bit of a _mass bee-extinction_ ,” his Handler says, punctuating herself with a loud bite of toast. “This one really is for the best.”

\---

Five knows damn well how to tie a tie himself, but his Handler is the one who puts it on him. A briefcase sits to his side, waiting.

“Have a good day at work, Number Five,” she says as she strokes a hand down his front, lingering at the spot next to his heart. Her eyes narrow mischievously.

It’s an order, and he knows what it means. _Be deadly, be efficient._

_Be a fucking genius._

He smiles a smile that escapes conventional happiness, meeting his Handler’s eyes straight on.

“I always do.”


End file.
